Java string handling

Java : Strings

Salman KhanID: 1309004Session: 2013-14Dept. of ICTComilla University

Outline▪ What is string ?▪ How to create String object?▪ Some important operations of strings▪ Some important string class methods▪ StringBuffer class & StringBuilder class▪ Difference between String and StringBuffer▪ Difference between StringBuffer and StringBuilder

What is String ?

▪ Strings, which are widely used in Java programming, are a sequence of characters. In Java programming language, strings are treated as objects.▪ The Java platform provides the String class to create and manipulate strings.

Important Notes about String

▪ String – Object or Primitive?- Strings could be considered a primitive type in Java, but in fact they are not. As a String is actually made up of an array of

char primitives.▪ String objects are immutable!

- That means once a string object is created it cannot be altered. For mutable string, you can use StringBuffer and StringBuilder classes.[An object whose state cannot be changed after it is created is known as an Immutable object. String, Integer, Byte, Short, Float, Double and all other wrapper class's objects are immutable.]

How to create String object?

There are two ways to create String object:

1.By string literalFor Example:

String s="welcome"; 2.By new keyword

For Example:String s=new String("Welcome");

Java String Example

Output :javastringsexample

Some important operations of strings

▪ String Concatenation▪ String Comparison▪ Substring▪ Length of String etc.

String Concatenation▪ There are 2 methods to concatenate two or

more string.

Concatenate two or more string.

Using concat() method

Using + operator

String Comparison▪ String comparison can be done in 3 ways.

String Comparison

Using equals() method

Using ==

operatorBy

CompareTo()

method

String Comparison Example

Substring in Java

▪ A part of string is called substring. In other words, substring is a subset of another string.

▪ We can get substring from the given string object by one of the two methods:1. public String substring(int startIndex): 2. public String substring(int startIndex, int endIndex):

Length of String

▪ The java string length() method finds the length of the string. It returns count of total number of characters.

Some more string class methods

▪ The java.lang.String class provides a lot of methods to work on string. By the help of these methods, we can perform operations on strings.

▪ Here we will learn about the following methods :1. charAt()2. contains()3. getChars()4. indexOf()5. replace()6. toCharArray()7. toLowerCase()8. toUpperCase()

charAt() & contains() charAt() = returns a char value at the given index number. The index number starts

from 0. contains() = searches the sequence of characters in this string. It returns true if

sequence of char values are found in this string otherwise returns false.

getChars() getChars() = copies the content of this string into specified char array.

There are 4 arguments passed in getChars() method. It throws StringIndexOutOfBoundsException if beginIndex is greater than endIndex.

indexOf() indexOf() = returns

index of given character value or substring. If it is not found, it returns -1. The index counter starts from zero.

replace() replace() = returns a string replacing all the old char or CharSequence

to new char or CharSequence.

toCharArray() toCharArray() = converts this string into character array.

toLowerCase() & toUpperCase() toLowerCase() = returns the string in lowercase letter. In other words,

it converts all characters of the string into lower case letter. toUpperCase() = returns the string in uppercase letter. In other words,

it converts all characters of the string into upper case letter.

Java StringBuffer class

▪ Java StringBuffer class is used to created mutable (modifiable) string.▪ Important Constructors of StringBuffer class:

StringBuffer(): creates an empty string buffer with the initial capacity of 16. StringBuffer(String str): creates a string buffer with the specified string. StringBuffer(int capacity): creates an empty string buffer with the specified capacity as length.

▪ Important methods of StringBuffer class: append(String s): is used to append the specified string with this string. The append() method is

overloaded like append(char), append(boolean), append(int), append(float), append(double) etc. insert(int offset, String s): is used to insert the specified string with this string at the specified

position. The insert() method is overloaded like insert(int, char), insert(int, boolean), insert(int, int), insert(int, float), insert(int, double) etc.

replace(int startIndex, int endIndex, String str): is used to replace the string from specified startIndex and endIndex.

delete(int startIndex, int endIndex): is used to delete the string from specified startIndex and endIndex.

reverse(): is used to reverse the string. capacity(): is used to return the current capacity.

Java StringBuilder class

▪ Java StringBuilder class is used to create mutable (modifiable) string. The Java StringBuilder class is same as StringBuffer class except that it is non-synchronized.

Example of using StringBuffer & StringBuilder class

Difference between String and StringBuffer

No. String StringBuffer

1) String class is immutable. StringBuffer class is mutable.

2) String is slow and consumes more memory when you concat too many strings because every time it creates new instance.

StringBuffer is fast and consumes less memory when you cancat strings.

3) String class overrides the equals() method of Object class. So you can compare the contents of two strings by equals() method.

StringBuffer class doesn't override the equals() method of Object class.

Difference between StringBuffer and StringBuilder

No. StringBuffer StringBuilder

1) StringBuffer is synchronized i.e. thread safe. It means two threads can't call the methods of StringBuffer simultaneously.

StringBuilder is non-synchronized i.e. not thread safe. It means two threads can call the methods of StringBuilder simultaneously.

2) StringBuffer is less efficient than StringBuilder.

StringBuilder is more efficient than StringBuffer.

Thanks to all